Posting Again

It's almost the end of December and it's finally slowing down! We are down to a few campers, but the weather is still nice--cold, but nice.

This past summer was busier than I expected! We had 8 park aids, including two Park Aids II, a Park Tech, and a seasonal mower. I looked, and I had only posted 10 times this whole year and that's why. I should have tried harder to post daily because it would be fun to look back on the summer, but there's always 2018!

Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day brought us full campgrounds, plus overflow camping, full day use areas, and surprisingly, very few conflicts!

We had one Paid Aid II who did our visitor center re-model. I'll have to look for before and after pictures, but he took out all the nasty blue carpet, replaced all the windows, my supervisor's office door, built a wall and a door in front of our hallway, gave everything a fresh coat of paint and stain, installed new lights, and put down tile on the floor--all while doing park rounds and supervising other park aids!

Our seasonal budget got cut this year--during our busiest year to date--so this coming spring is going to be interesting. I have to meet with our region secretary to figure out how much money we are actually starting with, but right now it doesn't look good.

We still have a lot of water in the lake!

 

Today I'm planning to try to get some more pictures around the park and spend some time in the campground. Our camp host is off today and tomorrow so I'm cleaning the restrooms and cleaning out the fire rings. It's been so nice out, I think it'll be good to spend more time outside!

Interesting Day

Today wasn't quite..."normal..." I did the weekly deposit and it seemed to take all day because in between I was selling passes, helping park aids do more timesheet stuff, answering the phone, and trying to make sure the one park aid who had never received his checks, actually got paid for the work he's been doing!

One fee envelope I opened had $0.00 written on it, but inside was a cracker. Like a Chicken in a Biscuit kind of cracker. I threw it away, then texted my previous supervisor from Fort Churchill because I thought he would appreciate that story.

I also had a hard time balancing credit cards....again....we are getting a new fee system soon, with training next week so maybe it'll get easier to do credit cards! At least it will keep track of passes and other inventory so it'll automatically let us know when it's time to re-order anything.

The Park Aids have been working on spraying weeds, clearing the beaches (downed limbs, branches, debris), cleaning, and doing a really good job of bundling firewood, splitting firewood, and doing fee compliance. They also keep an eye on things that are going on in the park, and letting us know if there is anything out of the ordinary (like the people camping on a dead-end road at the entrance to the campground and not paying....or the Harp Twins yesterday).

Channel 8 news was at Little Washoe this morning flying a drone around. We don't allow drones anywhere in the park except for one area on the other side of the lake just off the freeway, so I texted my supervisor and she said as long as they weren't harassing wildlife, including feral horses, and as long as it was quiet, she was ok with it. I forgot to watch the news tonight to see if they had anything to say about the park!

Tomorrow night I have a guided sunset/moonrise hike and I haven't gotten to walk the trail ahead of time yet. I am hoping to do that tomorrow morning before I go to work...no matter what I have to walk it at least once sometime tomorrow because it's a trail I haven't used yet!

Cub Scout Clean-up and The Harp Twins Visit

The last three days have been really busy at the park! The weather on Sunday wasn't good, so the campground didn't fill--we only had 7 sites left though! Our guided hike to Virginia City got cancelled because of the weather report and general lack of participation (6 people signed up). It's 12.5 miles long with an elevation gain of 2,500 feet. Last year it was around 90 degrees when we did it so we went through a ton of water...but it was really fun. I hadn't done a long hike like that in years and I had missed it.

We have a big event next Saturday in the Group Use Area where local organizations and businesses set up booths in the park and everyone is invited to come out and meet the people of Washoe Valley. It's usually busy and we have our table there too. I decided this year to make a hand-held picture frame for people to borrow and take pictures with, and hopefully tag us on Facebook! I also want to highlight aquatic insects or birds or something like that because we have a lake this year. During last year's event, the lake was almost dry! I don't have a picture yet because the frame isn't quite finished.

We also had Cub Scout Pack 150 come in and clean off our North Boat Ramp. It was not functional for a while because the wind blew plant debris and sand up against the boat ramp and dock so boats couldn't launch. These guys put in almost two hours of work (plus parents and park staff) and got it functional again! They also dug out a buried picnic table and raked out the beach. We parked our trucks and a trailer there and everyone loaded us up. We relocated the sand to an area beside the dock and hauled the plant debris to our slash pile.

Before (boat ramp covered in sand and plant debris)

Before (dock covered in plant debris)

Beetle larvae found during the clean-up...cottonwood borer? 

When you want to help, but you don't want to get your shoes wet....this is TEAMWORK!!

Today was Monday after payday so timesheet were due. We got the couple people who hadn't already done theirs to submit theirs online, but there were a couple problems. One guy, Mike, wasn't in the system yet so he didn't even have an employee number to sign into the website. Matt is in the system, but hadn't received a check since he started, two pay periods ago...we get paper checks at first, until direct deposit kicks in. We also have a seasonal mower who had just started with us from the Department of Corrections. His last day there was a week ago Friday, so he had done his timesheet with that one week on it and submitted it, but he still needed to submit a timesheet for us for the week he had worked with us. A call to Human Resources, our Region Secretaries, and our Personnel Analyst later, he can probably sign in tomorrow and get his timesheet sent in!

It was one of those days where we're always busy, answering the phone, sending e-mails, printing stuff out, and running around, but it feels like nothing really got done. I did hear from two of our park aids that I needed to go to the Deadman's Creek Trailhead to see what was going on. Two beautiful young women were playing full sized harps, with another woman filming them....I walked up and asked if I could take a picture. They said yes, but they had told a "creepy guy" no, and he said "too bad" and photographed them anyway because they were in a "public place." Yikes...Anyway they were the Harp Twins. They have a Youtube channel and travel around doing concerts and filming videos for their channel in different parks. They found our park on the internet and decided to stop here on their way to California from Chicago!

They attracted a lot of attention this afternoon!

Collecting Data in Quill Canyon

Yesterday I went up to Quill Canyon again (just outside of Carson City) to help with another field trip. The Carson High School Honors Biology classes have been monitoring the site for the past four years and I think I've been a part of the project for that long too! They set up transects every 10 feet for 100 yards in designated areas and each year they photograph those transects and estimate the amount of coverage each plant or bare ground covers. They had to look up or guess at the types of plants (forbs, grasses, etc.) so they could watch change occur over time. The area was sprayed for invasive weeds and the students would plant native seeds in the fall.

The weather didn't look all that promising but it was mostly wind and a little rain.

Looking for signs of wildlife.

My portion involved walking the area looking for wildlife or signs of wildlife. Yesterday we saw a Prairie Falcon, Magpie, Scrub Jay, Mallard, Quail, Mule Deer, and Desert Cottontail. We also saw lots of deer and rabbit scat, tracks, an antler, a lizard, maybe leeches, and some insects.

Nevada Bugs and Butterflies, a non-profit group, was there too and they showed the students how they look for insects. They also identified what they found, including butterflies, leaf beetles, caterpillars, beetle nymphs, flies, and bees. I also asked them to talk about the pinecone galls that we were seeing on the willows.

Showing the students caterpillars and butterflies.

Today I'm going to an Education Working Group Meeting in the Carson River Coalition building. It's my day off but I wanted to go. I also could have gone to another field trip in Quill Canyon, since this is the last year it's happening, but I thought going to the meeting might be more beneficial since the agenda has a lot to cover!

And finally:

You might be a state park ranger if....

...you need to make a sign with sticky letters and can find all but one of what you need!

We're Getting Busy!

I haven't written for a long time, but we've started getting busy! We had our biggest equestrian event of the year at the end of March--the Nevada All State Trail Riders. It's an endurance ride where they start at the park and ride into the Virginia Range surrounding the park, then down to the north side of the park and back. Normally they would use our obstacle course, but it's under water right now! All but two obstacles, both bridges, are flooded!

Washoe Lake is full!

Our local PBS show, Wild Nevada came to the park for a day and filmed us! I've been watching re-runs on Channel 5 and it's been fun to watch my co-workers show off their parks. I watched Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park, Spooner Backcountry, Lahontan, and other episodes I can't think of right now.  My supervisor, Jenny, did the section on boating (they brought me with them so I got to go out on Washoe Lake for the first time!) and I did a guided hike to the gazebo overlook on the Deadman's Creek Trail. After that, we met a local park user, Beth, for a segment about our equestrian area and trails. Chris, one of the hosts, loves horses and they had her put on a helmet and ride with Beth. It was really fun seeing all the behind the scenes work they do while filming. One of the cameramen was from Estonia and he was great to talk to. He kept having us re-do shots, mostly of us walking on the trail so they could get different angles of us walking over rocks and over bridges. They also wanted more shots of us entering and leaving the gazebo. Our episode won't film until sometime in October probably.

We had over 200 people at our Easter Egg Hunt, which is hosted by the South Valley Volunteer Fire Department. Their Facebook page said they colored and hid something like 3,000 hard-boiled eggs and we had over 200 cars in the park, maybe around 500 people. It got crazy in the fee booth, waving people through (the egg hunt was free), selling campsites, and selling permits with the line building up. We got through it and had a great day and nice weather for a change!

We've got a great crew this year and so far they seem to work really well together. We've got a guy who was the administrator of the Department of Ag's weed control program, a retired National Park Service interpreter, a UNR (University of Nevada Reno) engineering student, a man who is from Tahoe but has been working for Xanterra at Crater Lake for the last few years and wanted to get back to Nevada, and three returning seasonals, two of which are Park Aids II and will help us supervise the Park Aid I staff and assign projects and daily activities.

Dune Trek and Beach Stroll

Yesterday the sun shone most of the day! We haven't seen sun consistently for a long time this winter, which is rare...or it has been rare for the five years I've been in Nevada!

I had a guided hike yesterday and I always hike the trail ahead of time, to look for interesting things to point out, or for problems (like several downed trees at Fort Churchill that had to be removed--beaver activity). Also when I first started at Fort Churchill and later at Washoe, it was to familiarize myself with the trail before I had a group of people with me!

I took a 3 second video of gulls in the wind. I kept seeing wave after wave of gulls blowing by, so I finally decided to try to get them on video.

Yesterday it was a good thing I hiked the trail ahead of time, because I had planned a loop. Unfortunately, the section we needed to complete the loop was under a foot of water! I walked all around, trying to find a way around it, but there was no way, without hiking a lot longer than I had advertised. I finally decided we could walk the dune trail to the beach, then take the South Loop trail back to the parking lot. It worked pretty well, but it took me walking for a solid 2 hours before the hike to figure it out....

One of the lower areas, underwater. A hiker pointed out that with the water and sand dunes, we could almost be at the beach, except for the snow-covered mountains in the background!

I went home for lunch, did the guided hike, cleaned the campground restrooms and took out garbage, and I was TIRED! It was a good day though; I got to be outside most of the day and everyone I talked to was great.

The seven hikers I had with me were mostly Sierra Club members, so they were excited about hiking. One woman who leads some of those hikes offered to advertise Washoe's hikes on a meetup.com group and she gave me her card. That might get us some more people on our hikes.

Seeing the lake like this makes it hard to image the dry lakebed I used last year for my guided hikes, and even full moon hikes!

A Break From the Weather

The last couple days have been a nice break from all the precipitation we've been getting, but I guess Friday (my day off) was a mess! We got some help from the Northern Region maintenance crew working on the drainages around the office and the supervisor's house to prepare for the next storms, but one of the guys broke a water line and it was hard to fix and get it to stay fixed! My supervisor said they were outside all day soaking wet and freezing...

I did fee compliance yesterday through the day use areas and equestrian area and most people hadn't paid, but they were really nice about it! One woman was from Texas and just wanted to sit at a table for a few minutes to eat her donut and let her dog walk around. I let her know we have a 15 minute courtesy for that purpose, so she was happy. Another woman in the equestrian area was trying to pay me the $5 but she ended up locking her keys in her truck at the same time, so I gave her an envelope to fill out once her husband brought her a spare key! We were really busy yesterday--I think everyone wanted to get outside while the weather is nice!

I made some friends yesterday. I think they were hoping for treats!

 

I've got a guided hike this afternoon so I'm going to walk the trail ahead of time. I also need more pictures for the 

More Water

We are getting another "atmospheric river" event with more rain in the valleys and up to five more feet of snow up in the mountains. I went around the park this morning and got some pictures of the water! I also walked out from our Maze to the beach for another picture.

Lots of water flowing from the hills (Virginia Range) down our boat ramp and into the lake.

I think this is Deadman's Creek flowing into the lake right now. Normally there isn't much flow at all so this is pretty crazy!

Our day use area is still flooding. This mud flow used to be grass, but not there is a waterfall flowing over the rocks and into the lake.

From the beach looking south.

Campfire Program Planning

Yesterday while I was working on a grant for River Wranglers, I started reading through the organization's previously-funded grants for some inspiration. I came across a nature journaling class for at-risk youth and it got me thinking that I should learn more about nature journaling and maybe I could turn it into a program.

That escalated into planning campfire programs for May, June, July, August, and September. My supervisor had said she would like for us to have some more traditional campfire-type programs, so I decided to start with one a month. The last couple years I've tried a couple here and there and they seemed to work pretty well (except for the wind which stopped us from actually having a fire a couple times).

I like using cottonwood rounds for seats...

May's program is going to be about Nature Journaling. I've watched a couple YouTube videos on why and how, and found a simple, easy way to create a folded journal that we could even make during the program. I like the idea that all you really need is to start with a few minutes a day, sketching or recording your observations...date, weather, plants, or animals nearby, what you hear and experience.

One video pointed out that in the United States alone, people are spending less time in contact with nature and more time with electronic and digital devices. "Ecoliteracy is being lost in developed countries at an alarming rate." More time in front of our digital devices is causing higher rates of depression and obesity. Spending time in nature lowers stress and can increase productivity. Even starting with a few minutes a day can make a huge difference. One college student noticed that when finals started, she was feeling stressed and overwhelmed so she went outside for a few minutes a day, focusing on what was around her, and the stress decreased.

Journaling in the field forces us to look, really look at what is around us. Looking at details and recording them is so much different from what I normally do--snap a picture and move on--that I'm interested in giving this a try. Maybe by May I will have a couple different journals filled out to show people what they can do. You don't even need to be an artist--a few small sketches here and there, and eventually you won't think of it, and your artwork will get better on its own.

Other programs I thought of: Rattlesnakes in June, Wiley Coyotes in July (along with a couple scorpion hunts that month), an astronomy-based program in August, and an owl program in September.

Washoe Lake

I really want to get into the habit of writing again, so I'm going to try blogging every single day, working or on my days off. It's fun writing about the park and it might inspire me to learn something new for every post. We'll see!

Lately I have been really excited about the amount of water in the lake! It is almost full. We had to take the bollards away from the boat ramps because the water was rising so fast that we had to get them now or it would be really difficult later. Unfortunately I was off the day they took them out.

These two pictures were taken about a day apart. I was excited to see water touching the main boat ramp in the first place...the next day was even more exciting!

This is the picture I sent my supervisor when she decided the bollards had to come out very soon! I started this job in 2014 and have never seen the water this high. When I started, kite boarders were still able to launch from the north boat ramp area, but as the summer progressed, they had to walk further and further down the beach. It was March 2015 when the lake was finally completely dry. We found the last remaining mud puddle on the full moon hike that month.

 

I learned how to plow snow! Actually my one and only lesson was last year and I never really had to do it, until mid-January this year! We got a couple atmospheric rivers that came over the Sierra Nevada and loaded the valleys up with snow and rain. I was visiting family in Utah so I missed most of the flooding, but came home to this!

 

There has been a constant flow of water through our day use area for almost a month now. Other places in the park have water flowing that haven't had water in years, I think since the 2005 floods. (The 1997 flood was the worst in a long time, but the 2017 flood was closer in size to the 2005 flood) It's hard to tell from the picture, but this "river" is flowing through what used to be grass, and there is a small waterfall flowing down through the rocks and into the lake. It's a good lesson to see water flowing across the road, parking lot, and grass into the lake, carrying with it anything that crosses its path, whether it is litter or other contaminants like oil from leaking cars.